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REMARKS BY:  DONNA E. SHALALA, SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN
                 SERVICES
PLACE:       Child Welfare League of America
             Washington, D.C.
DATE:        March 2, 1995

And, a special happy birthday and congratulations to all of you.

Seventy-five years -- and going stronger than ever!

Seventy-five years of offering a helping hand to America's children.

Seventy-five years of providing the glue to help keep families together.

And, seventy-five years of insisting that all of us who work on behalf of children -- both in the private and public sectors -- meet the very highest standards.

Whenever I'm preparing to give a speech about children's issues, I am reminded of the great tradition of story-telling in America.

I'm talking about the folk tales, the fairy tales, and the down-home wisdom we all heard when we were young -- and pass down to the next generation as we get older.

Remember, the Native American trickster tales and the African American folk tradition? ...

... Golden oldies like Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks and the Three Bears ...

And, the Mexican-American song about a mother duck who protects and provides for her ducklings.

A far cry from "Beavis and Butt-head" ...

These stories all have one thing in common: in each case, the children get saved because of the intervention of caring adults.

Glenda the Good Witch. The kindly woodcutter. The loving parents.

You have been those caring adults for seventy-five years.

And, now -- more than ever before -- our children and their families need caring adults.

You've heard the statistics.

One in five children living in poverty.

Half-a-million children facing malnourishment.

Almost 200,000 teen pregnancies each year.

And, marijuana use increasing among 8th, 10th, and 12th graders.

But, as all of you know, the statistics tell only part of the story.

Behind every number is a family struggling ...

A dream deferred ...

and, a young life pushed off track.

Behind every number is the future of our country.

And, right now, the future of our country is a young girl -- barely a teenager -- giving birth to a low-weight baby in St. Louis.

The future of our country is a twelve year-old boy smoking marijuana outside his middle-school in San Diego.

And, the future of our country is a high school student, who once dreamed of weddings and graduations, and is now planning her own funeral -- right here in the nation's capital.

For seventy-five years, you have been in the forefront of the sometimes lonely struggle to protect this country's most important natural resource -- our children.

As both a quiet conscience and a vocal advocate for children, you continue to play a major role in shaping public policy.

And let me assure you that you have a friend in the White House.

And you have many friends at the Department of Health and Human Services.

President Clinton came to office at a time when the American dream was under siege.

Jobs were vanishing, incomes were falling, and family pressures were increasing.

We knew that to rebuild that dream, we had to begin with its foundation: building strong families and children who are loved and nourished.

With your help, we have gotten off to a good start.

Just read our record:

The Family and Medical Leave Act is the law of the land.

Immunization rates are at their highest level in history.

Head Start is better and stronger than ever.

Our Family Preservation and Support Services are empowering communities to help keep families together.

And, our children have a better shot at a healthy future -- thanks to our unwavering commitment to WIC, Child Care, and Healthy Start.

At the same time that we have made these targeted investments, we have also worked to provide a strong foundation of economic and personal security for families.

We helped create more than 5 million jobs in two years.

We expanded the Earned Income Tax Credit to lift millions of American families out of poverty.

We enacted a Crime bill that invests in prevention, gets serious about domestic violence, and gives our children something to say "yes" to.

We must fight any attempt to reverse those critical achievements!

And, we are pushing for a Middle Class Bill of Rights to give hardworking families relief from the soaring costs of raising children, buying homes, paying tuition, and securing job training.

Talk about real family values.

I am happy to say that your fingerprints are all over these accomplishments.

And I don't hesitate to say that our victories are your victories.

But there is another challenge facing us that may require more cooperation and more energy than we've ever needed before.

I'm talking about welfare reform.

No one understands better than you the complex problems facing families and children.

And no one knows better how to address them.

That's why when the President was formulating the Work and Responsibility Act last year, you were among the first people we consulted.

As you know, President Clinton has devoted more than 15 years to this challenge.

He's talked to hundreds of people on welfare.

He's heard their views.

And he knows that no one wants the system changed more than they do.

As governor of Arkansas, he championed the last federal bipartisan welfare reform effort, which resulted in the landmark Family Support Act of 1988.

The President believes that we must overhaul our broken welfare system -- and make it work better for families and their children.

We believe that, first and foremost, meaningful reform must be about moving people from welfare to work.

It must be about a paycheck -- not a welfare check.

And, it must reinforce the core values of work, responsibility, and reaching the next generation.

Let's talk about work first.

Ask any welfare recipient what the most effective social program is, and they'll tell you the same thing: a job.

That's why we believe that any real welfare reform proposal must have strong work opportunities and strong work requirements.

Anyone who can work -- should work.

And, we must help clear out some of the roadblocks that keep people from getting good jobs -- by offering education and training and providing safe and reliable child care.

Tragically, too many of our young people never get a clear shot at a good job and a productive future.

In part, that's because too many of our children are having children.

Teen pregnancy has reached epidemic proportions in this country -- and we need a national effort to reverse this trend.

We believe that, to be most effective, welfare reform measures should work hand in hand with a commitment to teaching young people to say "no" to sex and "yes" to their educations and their futures.

Finally, in contrast to the House Republicans, from day one, we've insisted that child support enforcement be a part of any serious reform effort.

We must make it clear to everyone on welfare -- both men and women -- that having a child is an immense lifetime responsibility.

It is simply not acceptable for parents to walk away from the children they helped bring into this world.

Our message to parents is clear: if you're not providing for your children, we'll garnish your wages, suspend your driver's and professional licenses, track you across state lines, and, if necessary, make you work off what you owe.

That's our vision. And, that's real welfare reform.

The House Republican proposals that are weak on work and cruel to kids are not real reform -- and I even brought along their midterm report card to prove it.

Report card day: It's the day you find out how you're measuring up -- and I'm sorry to say, on the welfare reform front, the House Republicans are light years away from the honor roll.

On promoting work -- they get an "F."

That's because, to move people from welfare to work, you need both tough expectations and clear pathways of opportunity.

And, the House Republicans fall short on both.

The House Republicans claim that they require 17 percent of recipients to be involved in "work-related" activities by the year 2000.

Sounds good?

But, the devil's in the details -- and their fine print says that people who are dumped off the welfare rolls still count towards that 17 percent figure.

Since when is getting cut off the same as working?

Not since the Reagan Administration called ketchup a vegetable have we seen such fundamental distortions.

What's worse, they totally leave out common sense measures that enable people to move people into good jobs.

We need to ask them: Where is the child care? Where is the education? Where is the job training?

These are the things that people need in order to get a job -- and keep it.

Then, there's the issue of responsibility. The House Republicans did a little better on this front -- they got a C.

That's because you can't reform welfare without tough child support provisions -- and, frankly, we were surprised that the initial House Republican bill was silent on the issue.

They keep promising the language will be there -- but it still has not been introduced.

Unfortunately, what little we have seen suggests that they still have a long way to go.

For example, under their plan, even when the mother fully cooperates with the state to establish paternity -- the state must still reduce benefits to that child for the first 3 to 6 months.

Where is the logic and humanity in that?

I am hopeful that the House Republicans will turn in their child support plans late -- and raise their grade.

The House Republican proposals did receive one "A."

Unfortunately, it was an "A" for cruelty to kids.

Every time I hear a plan to take food out of the mouths of children or a plan to punish children for their parents' past mistakes, I am reminded of the movie -- "Dumb and Dumber."

We all know that welfare reform must be about strengthening families -- not tearing them apart or writing them off.

Our goal must be to lift people up, not punish them because they happen to be poor or young.

We need to be tough -- not cruel.

But, cruel is the only way to describe efforts to undermine vital protections of children who are abused and neglected ...

... Cruel is the only way to describe proposals to abolish nutrition programs for children ...

... Cruel is the only way to describe plans to reduce assistance to thousands of abused, neglected, and abandoned children ...

... And, cruel is the only way to describe denying benefits to children of teen mothers ... Let's take a look at the issue of cutting off benefits to children of teen mothers under eighteen.

Unlike the House Republicans, we're not willing to give up on teen mothers -- or their parents.

We believe that holding teen parents responsible for supporting their children makes more sense than simply cutting off their benefits.

Our approach provides time-limited benefits for teen mothers, but only if they stay in school, identify their child's father, and live at home with their parents or a responsible adult.

That's the way to help teen mothers change their behavior, prepare for a lifetime of work, and break the cycle of dependency.

By totally cutting off benefits to teenage mothers and their children, the House Republicans aren't offering tough love or positive alternatives -- they're offering cold shoulders and cruel indifference.

But, with your help, we can inject some reason into this debate.

We need to send this message loud and clear: we're not going to stand by and let anyone put a contract on our children!

Finally, on the President's goal of ending welfare as we know it, the Republicans received an "Incomplete."

Incomplete, because they have shown no clear vision.

Incomplete, because they have shown no true commitment.

And, incomplete, because they have shown some -- but not enough -- willingness to work together for common-sense solutions.

Yes, the House Republicans have made some changes.

Originally, they had orphanages in their bill.

But, after you helped expose the fallacy that orphanages alone can solve our welfare crisis, the word "orphanage" miraculously disappeared from their bill!

Nevertheless, we still have some fundamental differences -- and some important issues that need to be addressed.

Every American should have deep concerns -- as I know you do -- about the proposals that deny benefits to children of teen mothers, abolish the school lunch program, and ignore child care, job training, and other provisions designed to help move people from welfare to work.

These are cruel blows to our youngest and most vulnerable citizens.

And, we need you to help us tell that story to the American people.

The truth is, we are standing at a crossroads in American history -- and there has never been a more important time for you to stand up and be counted.

So, as we leave here today, I want to thank you for being a voice of reason, experience, and compassion.

And, I want to ask you to continue to speak out and tell the truth:

that charities can't do it alone;

that a caring government does have an important role to play;

that, as President Clinton has always said: "government does not raise children, parents do" ...

... And, that all of must work together to abolish the status quo and ensure that everyone who can work -- does work.

Through it all, we need you to continue to stand up for our children.

Because, as you know, children don't have lobbyists.

They're not a special interest group.

They don't buy T.V. time or host radio talk shows.

And, they can't vote.

So, all of us have to be the caring adults that make happy endings come true.

We have to be the fairy Godmothers and Godfathers.

We have to make sure that children are everybody's turf.

This is our challenge.

This is our obligation.

This is our hope for the future.

Thank you.